"Forsooth, the panthers show a most uncivil amount of civil disobedience. They even resist my personal charm and my magical charm - and you wouldn't believe what they said about the whole lot of us."He shrugged."Yes, I can understand them now, and they're about as foul-mouthed as tavern of inebriated dwarves. Who knew cats were so rude?"He shrugged once more."On a related note, there's some potential furs next door, almost ripe for the taking."

But, the amulet was rather useful, the carved bear head interpreting the beasts' speech for him. Would this work on horses as well? By Zevoah, he hoped it would.

Logged

"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

"You spoke to them? Truly there must be some way to reason with them then if we can communicate with them? Tell them they'll die if they do not follow our orders? Surely animals cannot lie... If we could just coax a promise out of them, maybe..." He ended lamely, he was truly unwilling to see the beasts harmed, but it was either this or kill them. It would be a worse service indeed to leave them to starve.

"Well, Axtrami came to me in a dream, you see, and told me the tale of an Esgoloth dwarf. He came to Bareka to seek Axtrami's aid: his wife was sick, and he needed a god's help. So Axtrami gave him a glass scorpion in a deal, which would draw out the disease when it pricked an ill person," Auxzali paused, and then continued. "White Orcs killed him. In the fight, the Scorpion was destroyed into the five pieces it is today. One piece is, well, on my arm, another in Esgoloth, a third in Hyparica, a fourth in Runloc, and the fifth in Baraka's own Seva Noxen."

"...Hah! Axtrami came to me in a dream he says, like that was commonplace... You priests never cease to amaze me. Very well, with that many pieces it hardly matters which one we fetch first, no? So this little group may not yet have to go their separate ways."He patted Auxzali on the back and then turned to Sigurd.

"Ser Sigurd, loan me that pendant for a minute, I wish to exhaust every option. If I fail, the panthers are to be put down."

He then entered the room where the panthers were kept, held out the pendant towards them and spoke thus, aided by the pendant.

< "Hear me, big felines! Do you wish to live or do you wish to die?! I will have your word that neither of you try to attack us nor that you ever seek out humans ever again if we let you go free! Do I have that word or not?!" >

And believe it or not, but I actually rolled a 20 for that! With the +6 from the pendant then, trying to communicate my wishes to them and what not.

The panthers looked at Zelas with a sort of smug curiosity that he hoped meant that they'd do as he said. They looked at each other for a moment, as if conferring with each other about this new person trying to control them. An agreement must have been reached, for one came up to Zelas and put its head in his hand, while the others did a sort of half kneel of acceptance.

Either the panthers were evil manipulative b*****ds, or they were accepting Zelas' terms.

The first of the four panthers stalked out of the cage, its golden head whisking to and fro as it examined each of its potential prey in turn. It paused for a moment at Sigurd, and sniffed him. Repulsed at the smell of metal and sweat, it continued on its way and, with a flick of its tail, disappeared into the cave.

The second panther, once given permission to leave, also began to leave, but then turned its head towards Tar-Sul and snarled. Tar-Sul jumped in fear, and the panther seemed to get a measure of enjoyment out of this. It looked at Zelas with a look that seemed to say, "what? Am I not allowed to have some fun with you arrogant two-legs?" Before dissapearing after the first.

The third and fourth left with less hubbub and fun, and soon the only prescence left in the cavern was the six humans, the cooling corpse of the orc, and some cat hair.

"Hah! Excellent." Zelas beamed, pleased that a peaceful solution had been reached and filled with awe over the close encounter with the big predators. Hopefully, he would not regret having chosen this merciful path. He nodded towards Sigurd and reluctantly handed back the pendant.

"Indeed, let us retire, I have spells to prepare before any such encounter." Yes indeed, he had plans how to handle any coming encounter.

OOC: Fast forwarding to the next stuff. If any of you wanted to do something else before the morning, either PM me or post in the OOC thread. Health/abilities are reset to max.

The group followed Zelas' suggestion and retired for the night, doing the best they could to find comfort on the cold, hard cavern floor. Though they set a watch and preparations for attack, they needn't have bothered: only Nim saw a possible threat, and it was only a rat which momentarily investigated the cavern, and then fled. It seemed that word of Korkarr's death had spread quickly through the caves and that any bandits that had survived their attack had done as the panthers had and fled into the night.

And then came a sort of morning. Internal clocks told them that the sun had risen, and so they prepared for the day. Suspicions of possible betrayal by Demy-Sefrab began to take more shape now that they were soon to face whatever trap he may have prepared. Tar-Sul picked up the looted chest and closed it, staring at it long and hard. All this death over this chest and its monetary contents? It seemed impossible to imagine to the Sen-Rabbian peasant.

The sounds of armor being donned filled the room, as well as that of spell-book pages being flipped (and mutterings of magical words of power as well), as they prepared themselves for combat. But soon they were ready, some still jittery about what was to come next. Still, they retraced their steps through the cave, past the corridor and the Pond Room to the cave mouth, where they had killed the rats.

The morning sunlight pierced the gloom that had previously been lit only with torchlight. They could hear bird song and the sounds of the swamp, giving them the false impression of peace to come. The only question remained, to such suspicious men and woman of the sword and spell, which tree would the attackers come out from?

Tar-Sul, who by this time had left the cave mouth and had begun to wander off into the swamps, turned around with a questioning look on his face. It was at this point that, in a sudden flurry of motion, that someone dropped from a tree and landed with a splatter of mud and water directly behind Tar-Sul. He shouted in surprise and shock, and spun around to see who the mystery guest was.

"Why in the name of Moa-Moa did you release those panthers?" Shouted Tamyra. "They scared half to death!"

Her fury subsiding, she sheathed the two daggers she had been clutching and swiped some of the mud off herself.

"I see you found Tar-Sul," she continue, her fury subsiding. "Did you find his chest?"

"I'd say 'an answer for an answer' would be a rather fair trade here, wouldn't it?" Sigurd approached Tamyra, playing up the air of brashness that Sen-Rabbim came to expect of his people.

"First of all, you suddenly speak of a chest - which was not mentioned before. Are you perchance more deeply involved, more than a well-meaning ranger and protector of her people should be?"His gaze locked with Tamyra, he came closer."It is true that Tar-Sul bragged about treasure, but you seem to know more of it than even he did. The orc also had a few choice things to say..."She didn't have to know these things were mostly pompous posturing and a blood-choked gurgling.

"So, where is the truth? Only that will coax the truth about the chest's fate from our lips. As you see, we do not have it with us."The contents are a different matter, but the box was left back in Korky's lair.

Logged

"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"

"I know about the panthers because of logic. You do know what logic is, right?" said Tamyra to Nim. "You four went in, and four panthers came out. Korkarr had some panther pets, therefore I assumed you four- well, five, now, you five killed Korkarr and then developed a compassionate side concerning the panthers. Does that satisfy you?" She ended sarcastically.

"And as for you, Sir Knight, perhaps it would be best for Demy-Sefrab to explain, though yes, I am more 'deeply involved' than the typical Werstonian. He is back at Werstone, so unless you all have more questions, we need to leave. We have a lot of ground to cover, especially through swamp land, and I would prefer to be back by noon when the mosquitoes truly start to come out."

"Of course, lead on Tamyra." Zelas grinned and bowed, but secretly wished he had prepared charm person. He didn't know how long she would stay an ally and it troubled him, the possibillity of seeing her die, though she wasn't the most friendly of women. Oh well, it wouldn't come to that if he had anything to do with it.

He dropped back and walked next to Nim. He bent his head and spoke quietly to her.

"I trust you'll have the sleep spell ready when trouble no doubt arises."

He gave her a nod, and focused on the path ahead. Lousy swamp-lands, he thought as he trodded on.

My standing order is still in effect, once I see a bunch of armed people I cast mage armor.

The motley group of seven set off through the morning swamps. Tamyra led them, her head swiveling constantly to lead them true and not to guide them into a pit trap. The five party members who had done the fighting and the heroism within the caves came next, with Sigurd, as team leader, in the lead, as was the duty of any valiant captain. And Tar-Sul lagged behind, always a few feet back. He may have grown in Werstone, but he had never been one to make his home among the woods as Tamyra had.

The ground squelched and spat back mud at the group, and soon they were covered in the wet. But then, mud was not the sole danger the swamp offered. Sometimes, the Muck provided a threat much larger than mere mud.

Nim was the first to see the monster, but she still saw it far to late to do something. One moment there was naught but a still pool of water that they were passing; the next, a monstrous roar and an eruption of water as something green charged out of the pond. Tar-Sul screamed in fright.

A two-headed crocodile had just charged from the water directly at Tar-Sul. It lunged, and with each head bit into one of Tar-Sul's arms, and then it ripped as Tar-Sul screamed again.

His arms left the shoulders as easily as taking a stick from a pool of water. A spurt of blood, and then the beast fell back to the ground. Tar-Sul looked down at the beast, and then at each of his arms- or as the case now was, his stubs, and then ran, simply turned and ran as fast as he could go into the swamps, water splashing and mud flying as he half sprinted, half staggered off into the Muck. To die either of blood loss or by predator.

The monstrosity turned towards the rest of the group, made six from seven, and almost smiled as it began its attack.

OOC: In other words, roll initiative! Croc gets an 8, Tamyra a 12. And I rolled perceptions for each of you, and you all failed (croc gets +13 to stealth in water). Nim, though, was 1 off, which was why she got a special mention.

The blood-stained blade trailing through the air, he elucidated further: "Peasants are vital to any feudal economy, fool!"He wondered how his pondering on economy, led in crocodile, would sound to the others - or whether the reptile saw the error of its ways once he struck it, or after he explained?

« Last Edit: December 11, 2013, 03:30:54 AM by EchoMirage »

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"Captain, the buttocks are moving from the pink into the red and purple spectrum! We cannot maintain this rate of spanking any longer!"